


Ellipsis

by Saathi1013



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Het, POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 03:17:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade, after the Fall. Empty spaces. Things left unsaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ellipsis

**Author's Note:**

> No beta, no britpick. Just trying to purge a plot bunny from my system. Errors, if pointed out, will be corrected with alacrity.

This is what he'll remember later, in out-of-order fragments:   
  
Molly's hand on his chest. Her wide eyes.   
  
The ringing of phones, a cacophony of them. On desks, in pockets.   
  
Sally's eyes flicking away as she presses her lips together. In rue or resignation or regret. Something starting with an 'R,' anyway.   
  
_Reichenbach._

 

_***_

Molly's hand is on his chest.

Lestrade looks down in surprise, because she's not reaching through the hole in his lungs and sternum and spine that absolutely  _must be there_. He can feel it, jagged and raw and empty, but her hand only touches the open edges of his overcoat, jacket, the neatly-buttoned seam on his shirt.

"I'm sorry, but the family has asked that there be no visitors."

There is a tiny window in the door and through it, he sees the shock of dark hair, pale skin, a splash of crimson.

"Detec-" she says, and he can't see any color in the world but red. " _Greg._  Please."

Her hand is on his chest. It is intact. His heart still beats.

Black, white,  _red_.

"How?"

" _Moriarty,_ " she says, and the word is both a curse and an affirmation.  _She still believes._  He is not alone. "He's in there, too. It looks like a murder-suicide, but we don't know which - I'm sorry. I shouldn't be telling you any of this."

Also mixed news. Lestrade wants to tear something apart, and there's only Molly in range, living and breathing and gentle, so he fights himself down. Compresses everything he can't name to fill that gaping chasm in his chest.

"There'll need to be an investigation," he starts.

"...and they'll make sure you're not on it." She looks incredibly bitter, having to be the one doing this, here, now. "I'm  _sorry_."

He walks away.

 _Oh, look, my legs still work,_  he thinks with dawning hysteria.

His chest is cold, where her hand had been.

***

More red. The red-haired reporter woman - he can't be arsed to remember her name - comes up the steps, spots him, and angles to intersect his path. An avid gleam in her eye.

God only knows what look he shoots her, because she stops in her tracks. She does not move, neither forward nor back. She stands still as a statue, fear in her eyes.

 _Good_ , he thinks, walking past her without a word.

***

John won't return his calls or his texts. Mrs. Hudson turns him away at the door, her eyes brimming with sympathy.

"Give it a bit more time, I think," she says. Her hand reaches out, falters midway, then falls back to her side.

***

Lestrade is put on leave for a week. His flat is so,  _so_ empty, with holes in it where his wife's things used to be. It seems...  _fitting_ , to spend this hollow time in this hollow place.

He spends the first day drinking.

He spends the second regretting that decision.

***

On the third day, he gets to work. As his superiors are, no doubt, in the process of reviewing every case on which Sherlock ever consulted, it behooves him to do the same.

Fortunately, the culprits confessed when presented with the evidence, nine times out of ten. Sherlock may have unraveled the mysteries, but the actual policework backing up the solutions was usually too "dull" for him to bother with.  _Those_ convictions will stand.

 _But_. "Nine times out of ten" is not  _airtight_. It only takes one cock-up to ruin a career, when entangled with public outrage of this magnitude. And Lestrade's got not only his own career on the line, but those of his people, and a friend's legacy already in tatters to patch up  _(since the bastard couldn't be arsed to stick around and do it himself, damn him)_.

He flips on the news for thirty seconds before he's faced with a picture of the dead cabbie. His family are suing the force. Wrongful death, defamation. The ex-wife is weeping.

Lestrade turns the television off.

***

His phone chimes on the fourth day.  _Everything has been taken care of. You may return to work tomorrow_ , the text reads.

Mycroft Holmes.

He sends a message back.  _Then the rest of the week can bloody well count as bereavement._

_If you like._

***

Day five. He regrets not going in to work.

But he can't go outside. The flat may be hollow, but it's  _his_. The whole wide world out there is broken beyond repair, and no one knows it. Lestrade can't bear to look at it in all its blissful ignorance right now.

_Was this how He felt, all the time?_

***

Day Six:

"I just wanted to call and tell you... I'm glad you've been cleared." Molly says, haltingly.

"That's not why you called," he says, eyeing the half-empty whiskey bottle. He's not a Detective Inspector for  _nothing_.

The other side of the line is silent, then she sniffs, a quick, muffled sound as if she's crying but trying to hide it.

"Come over," he says abruptly.

"...what?"

"You heard me. Whatever you want to say, say it to my face. We'll order takeout and you can dance around it for three hours, but you'll  _look me in the eye_  when you say it."

"I... all right."

***

When she arrives, she's drowning in an overlarge winter coat and bundled to the ears under a scarf she probably knitted herself. He helps her unwind everything, layers shedding to get draped on the coat hooks by the door.

She looks so  _vulnerable_ , suddenly half the size she was a minute ago, her shoulders drawn in and her eyes darting past him to take in his flat. She toes off her shoes and wobbles unsteadily, one arm going out to catch her balance.

Her hand is on his chest. It is intact. His heart still beats.

And then he's crowding her against the wall, cupping her jaw, tilting her head back and-

"Oh," she says against his mouth. " _Oh._ "

***

They don't make it to the bedroom. He fucks her with his fingers first, right up against the wall, her tights ripped and hastily shoved aside, her skirt rucked up to her waist. Her blouse is unbuttoned and hanging from her elbows as she clutches his shoulders and shudders and pants and obediently breaks apart when he  _tells her to_  in a low, raw voice he hasn't used in years.

They stagger to the living room while she fumbles with his clothing and he pulls her hair free. It tumbles around her face and she looks  _shocked_ , eyes wide as he presses her back against the arm of the couch and kneels to strip skirt and tights from her legs.

He makes her come again with his tongue, and she almost falls backwards but for his hands gripping her hips with bruising force. But she's got her fingers in his hair, and she's  _warm,_ and he can't feel the hole in his chest when her heel is digging into his back.

When she cries out again, it does not echo.

***

"I'm sorry," Molly finally says to her carton of Chinese.

It takes Lestrade a minute to realize what she's saying. He's a little distracted by seeing her in one of his shirts and little else.

"What?"

She lifts her eyes to his, hesitantly. "I'm  _sorry_. I know he was your friend, and I-"

" _You_ didn't kill him."

"Might as well have," she mumbles around a mouthful of noodles.

"You, me, and everyone else," he points out. "We all had a part in it."

She sighs.

"Don't blame yourself, Moll."

She lifts her chin and pins him with a  _look_ he hasn't ever seen on her face before. Stern, and brave. "I won't if you won't."

He huffs a rueful laugh, grudging agreement in the twist of his lips. "I'll do what I can."

They're both silent then, prodding at their food half-heartedly.

"Will you stay?" he asks abruptly.

"I... do you want me to?" she stammers, her confidence drained away in the blink of an eye.

He'll have to work on that. "Yeah," he says. "I really do."

***

Day Seven.

Lestrade wakes with his arms full of warmth.

"What are you doing?" he asks, groggily.

"Listening to your heart beat," Molly whispers, her ear against his unbroken chest.

He strokes her hair and looks out the window towards the wide blue sky.

 

\- END -

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story; I am updating my archive here for completion.


End file.
